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Florida Democratic Party News Clips – June 1, 2012

JUDGE OVERTURNS THIRD PARTY VOTER REG. RESTRICTION

Justice Department to Florida: Stop effort to purge voter rolls on noncitizens [Tampa Bay Times] “The Justice Department ordered Florida’s elections division to halt a systematic effort to find and purge the state’s voter rolls of noncitizen voters. Florida’s effort appears to violate both the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which governs voter purges.”

Federal judge blocks ‘harsh and impractical’ Florida voter registration restrictions [Palm Beach Post]“A federal judge has issued an injunction barring enforcement of part of Florida’s controversial new election law, ruling that a 48-hour deadline for third party groups to turn in voter registration forms is “harsh and impractical.”

FDP Chair Rod Smith’s statement on ruling [Sarasota Herald Tribune] “‘As we have stated from the beginning, the GOP’s voter suppression law is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to keep Floridians from making their voices heard at the polls. Under Gov. Rick Scott, Florida Republican’s have led an unprecedented assault on voting rights – a basic right of all Americans – and it must stop. Today’s decision is a victory for the people of Florida and a defeat to the extremist GOP leadership in Tallahassee.’”

Judge Blocks Part Of Florida’s Election Law [FLDemocracy2012]

Feds to Florida: halt non-citizen voter purge [Times/Herald]

Justice Department tells Scott administration to quit purging voters [Palm Beach Post]

Voter registration deadline limit ruled unconstitutional [News-Journal]

Federal Judge: Part of voter law is unconstitutional [Orlando Sentinel] 

Florida’s Discriminatory Voter Purge [New York Times Editorial] “In Florida, where a few hundred votes can determine a presidential election, Republicans have never stopped searching for new ways to keep ballots out of the hands of minorities and poor people, groups that tend to vote Democratic.”

Stop trampling voters’ rights [Tampa Bay Times Editorial] “The state’s campaign to purge suspected noncitizens from the voting rolls is flawed beyond repair, and Tallahassee should shelve it and start over. Already, hundreds of Florida voters have stepped forward to claim the blacklists are inaccurate.”

Florida GOP Takes Voter Suppression to a Brazen New Extreme [Rolling Stone] “Imagine this: a Republican governor in a crucial battleground state instructs his secretary of state to purge the voting rolls of hundreds of thousands of allegedly ineligible voters. The move disenfranchises thousands of legally registered voters, who happen to be overwhelmingly black and Hispanic Democrats.” 

RPOF DOUBLES DOWN Florida GOP Chair Admits Voter Purge Is Flawed, Says It Must Continue Anyway [ThinkProgress] “Jeb Bush’s Top Education Advisor Receives Unfortunate DistinctionFlorida Republican Party Chairman Lenny Curry appeared on MSNBC this morning to defend his party’s decision to purge thousands of voters — many of whom are, in fact, eligible to vote — from the state’s voter rolls. But in the course of doing so, Curry admitted that the data Florida is using is flawed”

WELDON: MACK “WOULDN’T BE A GOOD SENATOR” Weldon says Mack wouldn’t be a good senator[AP] “Former Congressman Dave Weldon says he entered the Senate GOP primary because he doesn’t think Rep. Connie Mack IV would be a good senator.”

OTHER NEWS WE THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW 

Immigration reform groups decry Marco Rubio’s tax fraud bill [Miami Herald] “Some Hispanic advocacy groups who’d like to see immigration reform are unhappy with a tax fraud bill sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who they say is making it harder for poor immigrants who apply for a child tax credit with a taxpayer identification number instead of a social security number.”

GOP to Jim Norman: Who? [Tampa Bay Times column] “But here’s Norman in a real race and a fight for his political future — without, it seems, the full and fierce party backing that incumbents traditionally enjoy.”

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